Journal Entry #1 -- May 25, 1599

Hello. My name is Philip Morton. If you are reading this past the date of May 31, 1599, then know that I have either escaped this hellish prison, or I am dead. I am working my hardest to make sure it is the former.

I am currently in a small, dirty prison at the top of one of the towers that surround the Queen's castle. Looking around in my grey concrete cell, I see that this has been used only as a home for the rats for a long time, and the cell hadn't had any residents for possibly decades.

Until I was thrown in.

I cannot believe this has happened to me! Me! Philip Morton! The greatest of the lands! I deserve to rule this Kingdom, not that...old, wrinkled lady who can't even put her own clothes on without help. Why should we leave our fates in the hands of someone like her!? We shouldn't, that's the answer. We should make our own decisions, not let own decisions be decided by an old, useless bag of flesh! I can do better! I can do what the people want to do! We cannot let one family dominate us for centuries! We must have change, and I was there to bring it!

And look what happened. For disagreeing with the standard, I have been thrown in jail and ready to be executed in less than a week. For wanting change, I will be killed. I will not let this happen, I will escape somehow. I don't know how yet, but I will.

Journal Entry #2 -- May 26, 1599

I'm merely on the second day, and already I'm getting bored. How could those who spend years here handle it? Let me describe my day:

First I am woken up at six in the morning by a guard who brings me my morning meal. The food is served in a dish with no utensils, meaning that, in order to eat it, you must eat with your hands. And no, there is nothing to wipe your hands on afterward. The glop that the guard calls “food” is brownish-grey with small strips of lime green running through it with the texture of mashed potatoes. Needless to say, it tastes awful. I'd say that it tasted like somebody took rotten ground beef, sardines, a raw egg, and orange juice and mixed it all up in a bowl. I have only eaten a small bit of it so far, and I spit that piece right back out. I know that I may have to eat the food eventually to have enough strength to escape, but I can't bring myself to care right now.

From six in the morning to six at night, nothing happens. Nothing at all. I mean this literally, no one comes to my cell. If I must go to the toilet, then I must do it in the corner of my cell. At six at night, the guard comes back and gives me my supper. He completely skips lunch. The supper is identical to my breakfast, so obviously I don't eat it. Nothing more happens after that until six in the morning the next day. The only thing I am given is a stack of paper each day and a pen with ink. They say they do this so that the prisoners don't go insane. I have to say, it's working.

I only have five more days to try to escape. I will try to do so tomorrow.

Journal Entry #3 -- May 27, 1599

I tried to escape. Since you are reading this right now, you can probably guess that I failed. I didn't even have a chance.

In the early morning, right after the guard left me with my “breakfast”, I checked how solid the bars on my window were. They were rock solid. There would be no way for me to escape from my own cell. But... outside my cell, down the hall, was another window, merely covered by glass. If I was able to get out of my cell and break that window, somehow, I could stand out on the ledge that surrounded the tower and shimmy my way to the small bridge that connected the tower to the castle. After that? I didn't think that far ahead, I simply figured that anywhere was better than my cell.

Of course, I didn't know how I would possibly get out of my cell, but God came to my aid when the guard came with my dinner at six that night. Rather than hand me my plate through the bars, as he would usually do, he actually opened the cell and walked in to give me my food. I couldn't believe my luck. I immediately picked up my ink jar and threw it in his face. The ink stung his eyes so he couldn't see for a moment, and a moment was all it took for me to grab his sword and run out of my cell. I smashed the handle of the guard's sword against the window, breaking the glass. I was about to jump out... when three other guards jumped me from behind, jerked the sword away from me, and threw me back into my cell.

One of the guards stayed behind to tell me my fate. “We knew you were going to try to escape,” he said gruffly, “we read it in your journal. We read those, you know. We also wanted you to try and escape, that's why we opened the door. You want to know why? Because now that you've tried to escape, we can use it as an excuse to move your execution date two days up! We don't want you here, you're a waste of life. Just die already!” he yelled with a barely contained grin. This guard was having too much fun here.

My execution is now on the 29th, two days earlier. This is justice all right.

Journal Entry #4 -- May 28, 1599

I think I've gone insane. Sure, writing these journals was supposed to keep that from happening, but I think learning that I caused my death to come quicker pushed me over the edge. I say this because Peter Brownrigg is in my cell right now, hanging about in the back flipping a coin and trying to guess which side will come up.

He came right after the guard gave me my “breakfast”, which I still haven't eaten. I'm starving, but I know it's better to be starving then eat that food. For all I know, they've probably poisoned it. Anyway, once the guard left I turned around to see that he was standing right behind me, smiling. Needless to say, I was utterly shocked and my brain didn't get it for a minute. Once I wrapped my head around the event, I did what one would expect someone to do to someone who made all my plans fall apart and indirectly sent me to my death in this cell: I punched him in the face. Or, at least, I tried to. My fist went right through his head, as if he were a ghost.

I didn't really think about how that could be possible at that moment, I was too angry for that. Instead I simply said through gritted teeth “Why are you here?”

“To mock and torture you until your execution day since you're only going to die a quick and painless death.” Peter answered. “Shall I start now?”

I didn't say anything.

“Well, I was going to start whether you said 'yes' or 'no' anyway,” he said, “I'll start with a big one: Did you know that Kit and I were going to be killed by the road gang that robbed us but you scared them off when you arrived? Your own eagerness to kill us was exactly what saved us. If you came a minute later, I'd be dead.”

“NO NO NO! You're lying to me!” I screamed at him, “You're just trying to get under my skin! That's not what happened!”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, don't believe the truth.” With that, Peter went to the back of my cell and sat down, every half hour getting back up again to tell me what else I did wrong, or just brag about how two young teenagers, one of them a girl, were able to defeat me. It was awful.

This continued all day. The only time Peter went away was when a guard came to give me my dinner. When the guard arrived, Peter disappeared. When the guard left, Peter came back to haunt me.

Only one more day until death, I can't wait!

Journal Entry #5 -- ??/??/????

So, this is the afterlife, eh? It's... different from what I expected. It's a square room with white walls and thousands of black letters inked onto each wall. There's no pattern to the letters, some are even written upside down. On the floor there's larger letters that actually spell out words though. It says “CUE FOR TREASON COLON SIR PHILIP MORTON”. Obviously this is my own personal room, considering that my name is written on the floor and no one else is in this room. I have no idea what the beginning means though.

In the centre of the room there's a wooden table, chair, paper, and pens. That's how I'm writing this journal. I'm starting to wonder what this place is. I know that I died, that last thing I remember before waking up here is an ax cutting into the first layer of skin on my neck after being swung. So yeah, I died, so this must be the afterlife, right? But...I still feel alive. Can I age here? Do I still need to eat or sleep. Am I stuck here forever? I hope I'll know the answers soon enough.

Philip Morton put down his pen and started walking around the room, pondering about his existence in there. He didn't ponder long, however, when suddenly he heard something behind him. He quickly whipped his head around to see a door that he didn't know existed open up behind him. The person who opened the door was a smartly dressed young Chinese man.

“Hello. My name is Xing Li. You are currently needed in a fan fiction by 'Unknownlight'. Please follow me.” the man said before walking away from Philip Morton's room into whatever lay beyond.

Philip shrugged, then followed him, hoping for the best.